page_title: Hrotsvitha
section_title: Contemporary references
hierarchical_section_title: Hrotsvitha / Contemporary references
caption_attribution_description: English: fountain created in 1978
context_page_description: Born in Gandersheim to Saxon nobles Hrotsvitha was a German secular canoness, who wrote dramas and poems during the rule of the Ottonian dynasty. Hrotsvitha lived at Gandersheim Abbey. She is considered the first female writer from the German Lands, the first female historian, the first person since antiquity to write dramas in the Latin West, and the first female poetess in Germany.
  Hrotsvitha's six short dramas are considered to be her most important works. She is one of the few women who wrote about her life during the early Middle Ages, making her one of the only people to record a history of women in that era from a woman's perspective. She has been called "the most remarkable woman of her time", and an important figure in the history of women.
  Little is known about Hrotsvitha's personal life. All of her writing is in Latin. It was rediscovered and translated in the 1600s.
  Hrotsvitha's name appears in various forms including: Hrotsvit, Hrosvite, Hroswitha, Hroswithe, Rhotswitha, Roswit and Roswitha. It means "a mighty shout", and speaks to the way she wanted to glorify Christian heroes and legends, as well as the values they represent.
context_section_description: Since 1973 Bad Gandersheim has annually awarded the Roswitha Prize, named for Hrosvitha, to female writers; since 1974 the Roswitha Ring has been awarded at the close of each summer season of the Gandersheimer Domfestspiele to the outstanding actress.
  In 2006, American feminist drama group Guerrilla Girls On Tour issued the "First Annual Hrosvitha Challenge" on their website, announcing that they would bestow the First Annual Hrosvitha Award on whichever professional theater decides "to scrap their plans of producing yet another production of a Greek tragedy and instead produce a play by Hrosvitha, the first female playwright".
  The Hroswitha Club is an association of women book collectors founded in New York City in 1944. Members included co-founder Sarah Gildersleeve Fife and Frances Hooper. The club published Hroswitha of Gandersheim: Her life, times, and works in 1965.
  Hrotsvitha is frequently referred to in John Kennedy Toole's comic novel A Confederacy of Dunces, in which she is called Hroswitha.
  Asteroid 615 Roswitha is named in her honor.
  A play on Hrotsvita, on her playwriting career and touches of the secular in her plays, was penned by Amit Maitra of Howrah, a suburb of Kolkata, and is now being performed in Kolkata by a theatre group.
caption: Hrotsvitha fountain, Gandersheim
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